Will AI Change The Face Of Employment?

Published February 10th at 12:00pm

There’s an adage in journalism named after Ian Betteridge, a British technology journalist, that states “any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no”. It’s funny how many times this adage rings true, but this is not one of those times. Whatever your opinions on advanced technologies’ impact upon the labour market there is an inescapable truth to of all this - artificial intelligence can and will fundamentally change the way we work forever.

AI goes hand in hand with what is being described as 4IR - the fourth industrial revolution. Much like industrial revolutions of days gone by, it is brought about by a new technology changing the way we work. This particular iteration is characterised by the fusion in application of new, groundbreaking technologies such as robotics, IoT and artificial intelligence. However, unlike the industrial revolutions of the past - the application of AI is meaning this one is impacting in ways never thought possible.

McKinsey found that, compared to the industrial revolution, AI is contributing to transformation of society 10x faster, at 300x the scale and with 3,000x the impact. What this means is that we’re heading for a 4IR future wherein the pace of development sees the workplace being changed at a potentially much faster rate than expected, meaning we could be heading for an eventuality that much more closely resembles dystopia than utopia. Unfortunately for the workforce this could manifest itself in unemployment on a scale not previously seen.

With previous advancements, such as the advent of steam power in industry, the rate of job losses caused by the technology was matched by the creation of jobs as a result of that very same technology. However, this may well not be the case in the 21st century - a sentiment echoed by Erik Brynjolfsson, an economist at MIT; "The computer processor doubles in power every 18 months, 10 times greater every five years, it's a very different scale of advancement and it's affecting a broader set of the economy than the steam engine did, in terms of all the cognitive tasks. It's happening a lot faster and more pervasively than before."

For a real world example, take Rethink Robotics' ‘Baxter’, a robotic humanoid torso with arms, claw-like grips and a head complete with an LCD face. ‘Baxter’ was built to perform repetitive but currently un-automated tasks, such as assembling small items like computer parts. This kind of robot is far from a new addition to the manufacturing sector, but what sets these new generations apart is the ability to learn new tasks should such a need arise. This flexibility and capacity for use across multiple applications means that robots like ‘Baxter’ could automate many, many roles in the future.

It is technologies like this that led Deloitte to suggest that 35% of jobs in the UK are at high risk of automation in the next 10-20 years. However, it is not that these jobs are gone forever, rather the emphasis upon the workforce swings towards that of high-skilled labour rather than low-skilled. Deloitte also found that whilst 800,000 jobs have been lost to technology in the past 15 years, there is strong evidence to suggest that it has aided in the creation of 3.5 million new, higher skilled, jobs in their place.

As we move forward and the rate at which AI adoption increases, it is now more important than ever to gear our workforce to be responsive to the demands of an economy that creates a need for highly skilled and specialised individuals. To do this, the focus for the future must be on education, particularly at university level. It’s imperative that universities offer the right kinds, of course, to cater for the AI assisted world. If not, we could be left behind like the Luddites before us.